Lorne Gunter: NDP, Liberals put bilingualism before substance

Which should Canadians rather have, an Auditor-General who can speak both official languages or one who can ferret through the minutia of federal departmental spending and waste? Ditto with Supreme Court judges: Do we want the best legal minds in the country, regardless of whether they speak only French or only English, or is it more important that nominees to our highest court be fluently bilingual?

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Official bilingualism has never been passionately supported beyond the elites and francophones outside Quebec. It has never been terribly important to French-speaking Quebecers, even though it was originally designed as a sop to convince them to commit to Canada. Most Quebec francophones are far more interested in the predominance of French within Quebec than in the availability of federal services in their native tongue in Grande Prairie or Peggy‘s Cove.

The Liberals commitment to a dual-language policy was one of the reasons they fell from favour among francophones in Quebec in the 1990s and in the Rest of Canada after 2000. Most Canadians simply see bilingualism as an expensive, useless construct that divides more than it unites and that has accomplished little or nothing since it became law in 1968.

The notion that bilingualism would save the country if only enough money and goodwill were committed to it has proven to be one of those social-engineering myths only the chattering class falls for, which explains why the NDP and Liberals are making such a stink about Auditor-General designate Michael Ferguson and Supreme Court Justice Marshall Rothstein.

Thursday, the Liberals stormed out of a House of Commons vote to install Mr. Ferguson for 10 years as Parliament’s watchdog against wasteful use of tax dollars. As Tory and NDP MPs voted in the chamber, the interim leader of the Liberal rump, Bob Rae, was outside in the foyer railing to reporters about how the vote was an “abuse” and “illegitimate.” Mr. Rae even offered that Mr Ferguson’s appointment might be “illegal” because he does not yet speak French fluently.

“I can assure you the battle does not end here,” Mr. Rae vowed. “The battle just begins here.”

Mr. Ferguson has promised to become proficient in French within a year, but that is not good enough for Mr. Rae and his party. Mr. Rae insists that only candidates who are fluent in both French and English at the time they apply should be considered for senior federal jobs.

The real-world implication of that is that Canada will forever be governed only by those people who grow up in or move to the Bilingual Belt that runs from Ottawa to Quebec City, with a tiny finger that runs down into parts of New Brunswick. Sure, some people are able to make themselves proficient in both official languages while living in predominantly unilingual regions of the country, but they are few and far between. So unless one commits to living in a bilingual enclave, there is little chance he or she will ever be qualified, in Mr. Rae’s eyes, to hold a senior post in the national government. That means the federal government will never be fully representative of Canadians from all regions.

It was the same last week when NDP MPs Joe Comartin and Françoise Boivin accused Supreme Court Justice Marshall Rothstein of breaking a promise he made to learn French when he was appointed five years ago. The accusation came while the pair were questioning Supreme Court nominee Michael Moldaver at a Commons committee two weeks ago. Justice Moldaver promised to learn French if confirmed, a pledge the NDP pair disputed because, they claimed, Justice Rothstein had made a similar vow that he had not followed through on.

Transcripts of the 2006 hearing show no such assurance from Judge Rothstein, and Mr. Comartin admitted he did not do his homework before lambasting the judge.

Still, the New Democrat’s behaviour shows the extent to which the language-before-substance mentality has infected Ottawa. Outside the capital, bilingualism hardly matters. Inside, too many still believe it is better for the country to have a bilingual judge on the highest court who has to have the law explained to him than to appoint a law-smart justice to has to have testimony translated by the court’s very able interpreters.